Hand in Hand
by Thief of Black Winged Hearts
Summary: They held hands, that first time. A look at how Artemis would have worked at the end of the series. Spoilers for "The Last Guardian".


They held hands, that first time.

Her small palm was clasped tightly in his, the one and only sign of life Artemis's doppelgänger had made in five long months. The room was cold and white, sterile, a washed backdrop for this new man's pale skin. Three months Holly had waited. There had been weekend visits and day trips, long hours of sitting by his bedside while Artemis just lay there, eyes open but unresponsive, a marble sepulture atop the coffin of a good man. But though Holly could see the thrum of life beating in his long neck, the shallow rise and fall of his delicate chest, there was nothing there. Those eyes, once bright and sharp and filled with the mechanizations of a thousand plans, were now dulled and vacant in their half-lidded sockets.

It was the eyes that did it for Holly. She could pretend all she liked that this was him, that he wasn't dead and that this body wasn't nothing more than a desperate pipe dream born from DNA painstakingly peeled from her lips. But those eyes, those two blue eyes, could not be denied. Once upon a time, the two of them had each carried a piece of the other, a token of a task they had accomplished together. A symbol of the time when he had asked her to trust him and she had said yes. But now those two eyes were blue, and she was the only one left to carry the last piece of him with her. Every day Holly had to get up, look in the mirror, and see him looking back. Every day she would remember.

She had covered her mirrors long ago. Some things just hurt too much.

She had spent three months talking to him, telling him stories and bits about her day, reading random pieces of literature as she cradled his cool hand in her own. The first week she had kept imagining him looking at her, him squeezing her hand and pulling her down into a comforting embrace. But the mind was cruel; it played tricks on those with hopeful hearts. And day by day Holly watched and felt her hopes wither to bitter ashes on the floor, until one day there was no hope left.

She spent two months and three weeks trying to let him go.

The breathing corpse lay there, heart beating insultingly in the bed where he should have lain. And every day after her shift at the LEPrecon Holly would come, sit by the bed, hold his hand, and try to convince herself that Artemis was dead.

She would stare at his face, all of the lines perfect, all of the little folds and shadows exactly as she had remembered them, and tell herself that he was gone. He had left the faint afterimage of hope in this twisted, ironic form, a last gasp for air that had choked into silence. But it was nothing but an illusion.

Every day, she told herself that he was dead. But every day, when the clock wound down and it was time for her to leave, it was hard to let that warm hand go. And she would lie awake, staring at the ceiling as the night bled into day, and tell herself that tomorrow was the last time. But it never was.

Until the day when it broke her more than she could bear. And she had stared into his blue, vacant gaze as the tears that had refused to show had dripped down her cheeks in silent rivulets. They had fallen onto his face as she had leaned down over the bed, hands planted on either side of him, and kissed his forehead gently. The word goodbye could not force itself through her clenched jaw, so she said nothing, just breathed in once before rising to leave for the last time.

It was then she had felt the hand clasp clumsily around her wrist.

Holly had thought she was dreaming. That this was one more cruel delusion trying to entice her, to pull her back to this pointless bedside vigil. But she had looked down, traced the line of his arm with her eyes, and seen those long, delicate fingers circled around hers.

At the end of the third month, Artemis had looked straight at Holly, wrapped his hand around her wrist, and said her name.

And Holly had just sat there by his bed, his hand clasped desperately in her own, crying through her joy. Because she should have known. Artemis Fowl the Second never went back on his word.

-  
"Apple."

"Yes! And this?"

"Sp-spoon."

"Very good. How about this one?"

Artemis smiled, the corners of his eyes crinkling softly.

"Lollipop."

And Holly laughed, bright and smiling and as effervescent as the sun.

The doctor's all shook their heads, wondering why the woman kept trying, why she kept endeavoring to teach this vacant vessel to speak. But none of them saw the way he took her hand and drew gentle spirals of Gnomish in her palm. Only her.

Only them.

-  
"Come on Arty," Holly coaxed, standing at the end of the parallel bars. "One more step. I know you have it in you." Artemis, standing painstakingly on weak and shaky legs, simply glared at her. Sweat rolled down his brow in hot rivulets. But he grit his teeth and took another step, supporting his weight equally with his legs and his hands.

Slowly, he learned to walk. One step at a time, each less painful than the last, he moved towards the beckoning circle of her outstretched arms.

-  
The first time Artemis saw Butler, he did not recognize him.

Butler, ever the man of steel, did admirably well. He was gentle, not pushing the young man, simply saying that he was someone who cared for his welfare before he asked how his recovery was going. Holly watched the two of them speak, as hesitant as strangers where a once unbreakable bond had been, and had felt something like a hot knife run through the inside of her rib cage. Butler had clasped a careful, gentle hand on Artemis's thin shoulder and told him to get well soon.

He'd made it to the hallway before letting the tears start rolling down his face. And Holly had stood by him, the height of his curled up body the same as her whole being, as the man sat in the narrow hall and cried until he had nothing left in him, a river of emotion flowing out to meet the gentle sea.

-  
The next time Butler came, Artemis had closed his book, looked up at the massive man with an expression of intense concentration, and said slowly, "Domovoi."

Butler was careful not to crush him as he pulled Artemis into a hug, folding him safe and alive in the cradle of his arms for a long, long time.

-  
The first time Artemis asked her, they were sitting by the hospital, she drinking tea and he tracing patterns through the crumbs where there once a pastry had been.

"Holly, why can't I remember anything?" he asked suddenly, looking up from his plate to pin her beneath his intense gaze. He looked at her often like this, as if she and everything around her was a puzzle he was desperate to solve. "I remember your name, and Domovoi's, and a few vague things about being together before all of this. But other than that, everything is..." He paused, gaze tilting upwards as he searched for words. Language was coming back to him, falling into place in clunky starts and stops, but there were still times where the right words escaped him. "Everything is fuzzy," he said finally, meeting her pained eyes once more. "As if there is something in the back of my mind, a whole slew of memories waiting to come forward, but I can only see them through a hazy pane of glass." He frowned, his pale pink lips pursed as he beseeched Holly with his eyes for answers she had no idea how to give to him. "Why is that Holly?" he asked, his voice a little desperate and more than a little scared.

She had looked at him, his eyes questioning beneath the dark fringe of his hair, longer than she had ever seen it before, and felt all the words dry up in her throat. What did she tell him? How could she explain this long, complicated story, explain how he was before and what it had taken down for him to change. How would he react? She had no idea. But this limbo could not exist forever, and no matter the circumstance she could deny this human nothing. So Holly had wet her lips, gathered her courage, and smiled softly at him.

"This is a story about how a broken boy grew into a good man. It starts years and years ago, when the boy was only eleven and had devised a clever plan to get his hands on fairy gold..."

-  
The first time Artemis left the hospital it was for good, and he went to Holly's place.

They had to sneak him in. While everyone one knew of Artemis Fowl, they didn't want to cause a panic in downtown Haven. So they had wrapped him in cam-foil, put him in the back of a moving truck, and whisked him to her apartment. It was only a temporary measure, as he was to return to the surface the next day and spend the rest of his recovery at Butler's cottage by the sea. But surface transport was hard to arrange, and the next magma flare had been due tomorrow. So, for the time being, Artemis had hidden with Holly as they waited to take him home.

Her place was too small for him, and she'd had to move the couch and lay out pillows along the floor so he would have somewhere big enough to sleep. He had accepted this with good grace, and for a few seconds Holly violently missed the old Artemis, the one that wore loafers and could flawlessly play Tchaikovsky waltzes and would have pitched a fit about doing something as mundane as sleeping on the floor. But as she watched him puttering around the tiny space, so lanky and awkward and alive, those feelings fled to the deep recesses of her mind, to lurk there for another day. For now, he was here, and that was more than enough.

They stayed up late that night, talking about the old days in order for Artemis to understand, for him to try and remember. His intellect, vast and lightning quick, had not dulled the way his memories had, and he plied every detail of his past self from Holly that he possibly could. She sat on the couch as he lay on the cushioned floor and listened to her paint in the details of his previous life. He absorbed the cruelty, the thievery, the arrogance, and the surprising acts of kindness in near silence, broken only by the soft murmur of his voice when he asked for clarification or elaboration.

During these hours, Holly was selfishly glad for the nighttime shadows that shielded his eyes from hers.

-  
The first time they kiss, she kisses him. The second time they kiss, it is his final minute of life. The third time they kiss, she had woken slumped over sideways on the couch to him using gentle fingers to smooth a lock of auburn hair from her face, the ebony gauze of night clinging to his form like a cloak of darkness.

They'd just breathed, the two of them in the dark, him kneeling before her like a supplicant to a goddess, her languid and vulnerable from waking. He was close enough that the gentle heat from his body radiated to touch her and the softness of his breath brushed her cheek.

"Holly," he says, his voice urgent and soft. He laid his cheek against her temple and just rested there, touching, his body a frame bracketing her in. It caused electricity to fizz quietly along the edge of her nerves, setting them alight as the breath left her body in one long rush.

"Artemis," she says calmly, gentle and sensing the edge the two of them were toeing, flirting with disaster. She is surprisingly fine with it. They had danced with danger before; it was what they did best. She didn't know what the next heartbeat will bring. What she does know is the painful finality of death and the sensation of time trickling slowly through her clenched fingers.

She's done with regretting.

"I don't want to be that boy anymore," he rasps out, desperate for control but not finding any. Holly could feel his clenched fists resting on either side of her body, slumped back against the couch until she is almost supine, barely managing to make out Artemis's regretful, wrecked expression by the muted glow of the lights through the closed shades.

"You never really were," she murmurs softly, and tilts her head up so her lips meet his.

It was a soft thing made softer by the night and the tears that wet Holly's curved cheek. Her Artemis had always had the potential for this, Holly had thought, locked away deep inside by the trials of his upbringing and the family name hanging like stone around his neck. It had taken many long years for it to emerge, a fragile butterfly pushing its way through a twisted chrysalis of arrogance, greed, and sociopathy. But now this new man was here, fresh and unwritten, oh so different but very much the same. So when his mouth brushed gently over her own, stealing her breath and bringing tears to her eyes, she had wept for everything that was now lost to this man, everything that was now lost to her. Artemis had changed, and in this terrible and tender moment she didn't know if he was more different or the same.

They broke apart as Holly slumped further so her forehead was buried in his slight chest, sobbing as she hadn't since the day she had finally accepted him as dead. In a way, in some of the most important ways, he was.

"I thought I lost you," she chokes out, and Artemis lets out a small breath and wraps her in his arms, as gently and gingerly as he once would have.

"I'm still not sure you haven't," he says quietly, oh so very quietly, the words lost in the soft fire of Holly's hair and the sounds of her tears.

-  
The first time Artemis puts on a suit and tie, he looks more like his old self than he ever had before.

Holly had been given weekend leave from work to go check on the progress her charge had made in his recovery. A month had gone by, but Holly was not worried, knowing that she was safe in leaving Artemis in Butler's capable hands. She sat with him now at his rickety kitchen table, surrounded by books and coffee cups as the two of them watched Artemis turn this way and that in the soft light of the kitchen.

"It feels quite comfortable," he said, satisfied with his examination, and lowered himself carefully into the third spindly chair. Even given Holly small stature, the room was still cramped. "Very much like putting on a fitted glove that one hasn't worn in a very long time." He sounded more cultured now, Holly noticed, more like he used to. She wasn't sure what that meant or how she felt about it. But the icy tone of reserved disdain, something the old Artemis had never quite shaken despite all of his progress, was still absent in its entirety. This was a different man, a softer one.

"I'll go out and buy us some tea, we're out right now," remarked Butler, and removed himself from the situation with a supervising amount of grace for someone of his size and profession. She supposed that a lifetime with Artemis had taught him the art of delicately making statements. Artemis must have been a terror to say no to.

"So, Holly," said Artemis after the door had closed gently behind Butler's mountainous retreating back, "Care for a game of chess?"

Holly said nothing, just raised an eyebrow at him. "You'll win," she said baldly, her delicate chin resting in the palm of her hand as she slumped closer to the tabletop. "I don't see what the point is when we both know you'll beat me in three moves."

"Ah, but Holly," said Artemis with an almost predatory anticipation as he pulled the board over and began to set up the pieces. "Sometimes it is not winning or losing that matters the most. Sometimes it is the playing that makes the experience."

This threw Holly for such a loop that she was silent the whole time Artemis laid out the board. To the old Artemis, winning was everything, the only thing that mattered. The only begrudging times winning hadn't come first were when it would be at the cost of those he cared about. And even then he would sulk about it afterwards.

"What happened to your 'I always win' attitude?" Holly asked with abrupt incredulity, and Artemis suddenly looked down and busied his hands with the task of centering each piece to perfection in their tiny squares.

"I suppose," he said, and when he looked up at her the focus and intensity surprised her. "That it was time to play a different kind of game, wouldn't you agree?" And for some reason, the low tone of his voice had sent heat flooding down all the way down to the tips of her toes. He looked like he was trying to convey something to her, something of desperate importance, but what the exact meaning of his words could be, Holly could only guess.

Instead, she'd flashed him an impish smile, tossed her hair behind her and said cheekily, "Who knows? Maybe I'll beat you this time."

"Come now Holly, stop being absurd and make your first move," Artemis said with dismissive arrogance, gesturing lanky with one hand for her to begin. Somehow reassured by this, Holly smiled to herself and moved the first piece.

The first time Artemis re-met his family, Holly wasn't there. She had been swamped under work, trying to track the potential for another Goblin Revolution brewing in the streets with the rest of her team. In light of her service and leadership, Vinyaya had taken her aside one day in the office and asked her quietly how she felt about leading her own team. Taking her stunned silence for acquiescence, Vinyaya has simply nodded and walked away with a satisfied air. Two days later she had been promoted and was moving her office brick-a-brack to a new office (she had her own office now!) and was meeting her team for the first time. This whole Goblin Revolution business was a trial by fire for her and them.

However, as she had frantically directed her team through the streets of Haven and tried to not get fireballed by a brain-dead goblin, in the corner of her Comm pictures were popping up from someone called "TheButlerDidIt". Haha Butler. Very amusing.

Artemis looking nervous in the back of a cramped euro car on the way down the long driveway.

Artemis holding on for dear life to the edge of the same car as a hand was seen trying to pry his fingers off the edge of the frame.

Angela sweeping Artemis into a joyful embrace.

Artemis Senior crying with joy, not even bothering to hide the tears rolling down his face as he smiled.

Myles and Beckett facing off with Artemis, staring at each other from a distance, all of them looking unsure as to what they should do.

A large black dog licking Artemis's face, horror and disgust written all over his features. Apparently the Fowl's had gotten a pet while he was away.

Various shots of dinner, a mixture of joy and uncertainty on everyone's faces.

Artemis digging through his old room, his nose buried deep into what looked like an old journal.

Cardboard boxes being loaded into the small car.

The last one, obviously taken by Butler as he'd stood at the bottom of the front steps, was the whole family together in one big hug, everyone plastered onto Artemis like barnacles to an old ship hull. From the camera's angle you could see the small, awed smile on Artemis's face, and the way he had an arm each around Myles and Beckett's shoulders as his parents wrapped him in their arms. The Fowl family, the way it could have been. The way it should have been.

From her place hiding behind a dumpster in a dark alley, waiting for the next moron to try and throw a fireball at her, Holly had caught a glimpse of that one in the corner of her helmet screen and took a moment to smile.

The first time Holly had the free moment to go visit Artemis's new apartment near the small fishing town where Butler now lived, two months had passed.

Holly and Artemis had filled the long space with phone calls and the new version of Skype Artemis had created, claiming the other one wasn't advanced enough for his tastes. It had been odd for Holly, seeing Artemis but not being able to touch him. For the first week it had bothered her immensely, her longing to reach through the screen and grab the corner of his jacket, to touch him and prove he still existed. But slowly Holly's unease had faded, and the two of them had settled into a pattern that had been established whenever the two of them weren't saving the world. The would call each other up and chat about Artemis's new job as a Professor at a University, about Holly's work, about the details of Artemis's life he was starting to remember. Bit by bit, the piece's of Artemis's past were trickling back to him, and Holly wasn't sure if she should be ecstatic that he was remembering or worried that this new, changed Artemis was going to vanish into the ether.

They hadn't touched on the intangible change their relationship at all in the last two months. The closest they had come to directly addressing it was that sometimes, while they were talking, Artemis's voice would soften, and he would get a fond, almost longing look in his eyes. Usually this was right before he would tell her he missed her, something the old him would have never admitted so freely unless the situation was dire and had required it of him. But now, they had this new, unexplored terrain between them, laid out in the unveiled fondness in Artemis's voice and the careful way Holly would awkwardly tell him she wished he was there with her. Ironically, it was now Holly who was the emotionally stunted coward about voicing her emotions. A simple "I wish you were here so I could split this d'arviting work with you", which was by far one of the least romantic things one could say to another person, now carried the potential emotional weight of a backpack filled with rocks, causing Holly's tongue to trip and stutter

Within the confines of her own head, Holly had been very carefully not labeling any of this. Whatever the hell "this" was anyway. So far, all the two them had were a bunch of mixed signals, acres of history together that only one of them completely remembered, and a whole list of reasons telling them why "this" would be a bad idea. Little things like the age gap. And the lifespan gap. And the d'arviting _species_ gap. All those inconsequential things. She could see it all laid out, her job, his intelligence, their living location, all of the facts of their lives sitting there like road blocks, warning her of the rough future ahead.

With that in mind, Holly had taken a page out of the old Artemis's book and compartmentalized so much that she didn't even have to think about any of it. And, to be honest, Holly was comfortable acting like a d'arviting teenaged moron right now.

So, of course the first thing she does after knocking on Artemis's balcony door was to trip and fall flat on her face.

Artemis now lived in a brick apartment building near Dublin University, which the school owned and used to house their professors free-of-charge. Not that Artemis needed to worry about money, with both his salary and his inheritance, but the university had been gagging to have him enough that they'd offered the accommodations free of charge. Artemis had told her he liked it mainly because it was quiet. None of the other "idiots" in the building bothered him, and it was close to the school. Artemis had been discovering the very pedestrian joy of walking, mostly because he had failed his driver's test the first time and was now too aggrieved by the personal failure to try again. The place was on the third floor, and had a small balcony that overlooked the crowded street below. This is what Holly had knocked on, overbalanced as Artemis suddenly opening the sliding glass door, and had fallen neatly into the region of Artemis's chest.

Instinctively, Artemis had wrapped his arms around her to try and prevent a total collapse of both their persons, and this somehow morphed into a "hello" hug without Holly really understanding quite how it had happened. She had forgotten how warm he was, how solid and real. Laughing a little at the situation in general Holly returned the embrace, him holding her a bit off the ground so her ear was mashed into the ridge of his collarbone. Releasing her after several long moments, Artemis placed her feet gently back on the floor and shot her a small smirk. "As graceful as ever, Captain," he remarked snidely, and Holly reached up a little to punch his arm.

"Shut up," she said good-naturedly before presenting to be annoyed. "And I'm not a captain anymore. It's Lieutenant Commander Short to you, mud boy." The insult, once spit in rancid hatred, had muted into something of a term of endearment over the years. How things could change indeed.

They filled the evening with talk and food, catching up over subtle candlelight and expensive red wine. She complained about her work, how the goblins were starting to regroup around a new leader and how much paperwork she had to do as a team leader. Artemis matched her paperwork with his correcting, the monthly progress reports he had to give as a new Professor, and the office hours that bored him to tears. Somewhere around a dessert of chocolate mousse and whipped cream, Holly had belatedly cottoned onto two facts. One, there was no way Artemis had made this himself. It was too crafted, too perfect, all of the earmarks of a professionally prepared meal. Two, this was a date. There was something about the nervousness Artemis was trying hard to hide, some of the edgy excitement she could see in the way he moved and the way he spoke. Holly's mind wandered to an image of Artemis sitting, rapidly taking notes while Butler poured information directly into his brain. She smiled. Her Mud Boy was doing surprisingly well for a first-timer.

These untested waters were rising to lap at her feet, tempting her to just step forward and let them take her. Perched on the kitchen chair, watching Artemis animatedly describing the sheer stupidity of his coworkers, Holly decided she would just stand still and let the waters take her. She was tired of fighting, but not ready to jump yet, not ready to take the leap and fully commit. Given their long history that only she could fully remember, Holly still found it difficult to not expect this to fall to pieces.

As if sensing the shift in mood, Artemis quieted and cleared his throat, delicately placing his wine glass on the table before rising to his feet. Without saying a word, he held out a hand to her, silently asking her to follow. Feeling the precipice they were both standing on, seeing the understanding in Artemis's nervous eyes, Holly let out a quiet breath before slowly placing her hand in his. He drew them silently to the balcony, and they both leaned out to feel the sea breeze and watch the city speed on below them.

"Humans are funny creatures, wouldn't you agree?" asked Artemis quietly, the air causing the newly-grown fringe of his hair to flutter in the wind. Holly smiled sadly, looking out at the yellows and the reds of the lights below, at the white shimmer of the starlight up above .

"Oh, I don't know," she said lightly, pushing the ghosts of her parents and a dying Earth from her mind, just for this moment. "I think you're the funniest human of all."

Artemis turned to look at her, and his eyes were heavy-lidded with an emotion Holly had never seen on his face before. "How so?" he murmured, taking the single step that brought him into her personal space. His two blue eyes, shimmering with the blue of a deep ocean, locked with hers and did not let go. Holly looked at the way the wine had flushed his cheeks a delicate pink and felt something twist low in her gut.

"Because humans aren't supposed to fall for fairies," she said in a low murmur, unable to look away from his eyes. She was flushing now too, having said this out loud for the first time, and looked away with embarrassment.

Artemis chuckled, and suddenly Holly let out a squawk as he picked her up in a sudden burst of daring movement, placing her dangerously on the balcony railing so she could be level with his face. "Well, I suppose," he said hesitantly, gaze jittering between her two eyes, checking them for any sign that this wasn't what they both wanted, "That makes you odd as well. Being a fairy who fell for a human and all."

There was a long moment where thought whirled in Holly's head, whether she should stop now, whether they were ready, whether they could somehow manage to make this work. But in the second where Artemis's eyes began to fill with doubt and he began to draw away, Holly smiled and leaned forward. "Well, I guess we're suited for each other then," she breathed, feeling the uncertainty falling away, giving into the heady moment of the now.

Artemis gave a relieved sigh, and as the anxiety fell away he seemed five years younger all at once. "I, personally, am glad this one fairy has a thing for Mud Men."

"Not all of them," breathed Holly, and she stretched up the tiniest bit so their lips could meet once more. They touched gently, then not-so gently, and the sea breeze found no space between their bodies to travel through. _Just the one,_ she thought, and the two of them stayed there for a short eternity, entwined beneath the stars.

Hand in hand, year by year, they faced the world together. The aging and the battles, promotions and crises, the long periods of absence and sweet periods where they could have one minute of life together. And even at the very end, until the moment they said their last goodbye, they both agreed they wouldn't have wanted it any other way.


End file.
